More than 700 NHS support staff – including 50 in Liverpool – face redundancy after a privatisation deal worth up to £1bn was signed.

Outsourcing giant Capita took over all of NHS England’s primary care support centres last month and has now launched a consultation with staff over massive job cuts.

The firm plans to shut 29 of the centres – including Bevan House in Wavertree – and make 705 redundancies, according to public sector union Unison.

Just 175 employees will be kept on at the three remaining centres in Leeds, Preston and Essex, the union added.

The centres are responsible for keeping medical records up to date and sending out letters to patients.

Paul Summers, Unison’s North West regional organiser, said: “We are worried about important NHS functions being provided on the cheap by profit-seeking private companies.

“Capita are intending to dispense with a national network of offices and to make 80% of staff redundant.

“Hundreds of people across England will lose their jobs and the NHS will lose their knowledge and experience.”

NHS 'being used a source of profit'

He added: “We are concerned that Capita will not have the capacity to provide a safe and secure patient records service.

“It’s not right that the NHS is being used by the Government as a lucrative source of profit for private companies.”

According to a leaked NHS memo previously seen by the ECHO, Bevan House will close no later than May 2016, while the first six sites to go – Chelmsford, Yeovil, Derby, Mansfield, Leicester and Lincoln – will shut as soon as December this year.

The final sites earmarked for closure in Walsall and Hertfordshire will be axed in October 2016.

Capita’s contract to run the centres is reportedly worth £100m a year and could last for a decade.

Mark Berman, the company’s managing director of primary care support in England, said: “The focus of our plans is about improving the systems and processes for primary care support to create a service which is easier to use for staff and safer for patients.

“We are currently undertaking a consultation exercise with staff, working closely with them and their representatives to do all that we can to support them.”